I Deserved That

*Axle's POV*

It’s my third first day of senior year and I know we’re not going to be doing any real work, so  take it upon myself to skip the morning classes. I’ll show up at lunch to scope everything out. I text the guys to tell them my plan and they say they’ll do the same.

When we walk into the cafeteria, conversation comes to a halt and I can’t lie, I love the feeling. People at this school, especially the girls, will go pretty far to get us to pay attention to them. None of them are interesting enough to keep it for very long though. 

We walk over towards an empty table and as we head over, I’m surprised to see that the cheerleader's usual table is occupied by a group of people I vaguely recognize and Liz is over at a different table with her minions.

I look back over to the table and notice the extremely attractive blonde girl sitting with them. She must be new. There’s no way I haven’t noticed her until now with a face like that. She’s easily the hottest girl in this room right now.

I turn to my brother and say, “Do you know that girl?” and nod my head in her direction. 

“Which one?”

“Which one do you think, dumbass. The hot one.”

“Nah, don’t know her. I know the people she’s with though. They’re all seniors.” 

Just then, Liz comes over and stands directly in my line of vision.That girl has been trying to get me to sleep with her for like 2 years now. I’m not that stupid though, if I sleep with her, I’m never going to get rid of her.

“Hi Axle, welcome back,” she says in her best seductive voice.

“Hello Liz. I see you’ve changed tables.”

“Yeah, the new girl is a huge bitch. I heard she transferred from WestSide,” she says in a disgusted tone. WestSide huh? And she was a bitch to Liz? Alright new girl, you have my attention.

“Anywho,” Liz continues, “I’m having a start of senior year party at my place Saturday. Will you come?”

I just shrug noncommittally. “Are you done?”

“Um, yeah. I guess so. Enjoy your lunch! Toodles!” Fuck she’s annoying. 

“Dude, you’re such an asshole,” Jameson laughs.

“Well, the chick seriously needs to get the memo that I’m not interested. So what do you know about the new girls’ friends?”

“The blue-haired girl is Cleo and the girl beside her is her girlfriend Lexi, then the girl beside her is called Luna; I’m pretty sure she’s in the school band and then the guys are Nate and Drew. They’re in the drama club I think.”

“Hm. I see.”

We eat our lunches and then when the bell rings, I follow behind her to see what class she’s going to. I see her walk into English Lit, which is very convenient considering that’s where I’m supposed to be anyway. I see her sit near the back of the class. I sit myself down in the seat next to her, and she doesn’t even bother looking up from her phone. I lean over and say, “Hello.”

She looks up at me with her bright blue-green eyes, face completely indifferent and raises an eyebrow and says, “Hi.”

“You’re new here right? What’s your name?”

“Six,” she says.

“Like the number?” I ask, hoping I didn’t just hear her wrong.

“Yes,” she replies with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I’m Axle.”

“Like the car part?” She shoots back, a cocky smirk forming on her face. Wow she is a sassy one. I smile at that and say, “Alright, I deserved that.” 

Just then, Mrs. Murphy walks in. Shit. She hates me. I thought she was supposed to retire this year. 

“Good Afternoon class, I trust you all had a good summer. Welcome to senior year. Or I guess, welcome back in some cases,” she says and shoots me a look. Bitch. 

She then proceeds to explain that we will be studying 1 book per month and that we will be working in pairs to submit a report for each book and that she’s picking the pairs. When she announces that I’m paired up with Six, I can almost forgive her for being a bitch. Almost. Everyone knows that in high school, being paired up for an assignment almost always leads to a hook up. Well for me at least.

When she tells us we can begin planning with our partners I turn to Six and say, “So Six like-the-number, where do we start?”

“We? Are you actually planning to participate in this?” 

“I take it you heard some things about me from your friends, huh?”

“I did.”

“What exactly did they say?”

“That this is your third try at senior year and that it’s because you can’t be bothered to show up to class.” This isn’t anything I haven’t heard before but for some reason, it stings a little coming out of her mouth. Maybe it’s the strange mix of disinterest and anger in her tone.

“Yes, well they’re not wrong. But you know what they say, third times a charm. I do actually plan on graduating this time around, so, yeah. Should we get started?” 

“I guess so. The first book on the list is 1984. Have you read it before?”

“What do you think?”  She rolls her eyes and says, “So, no. I read it a couple years ago but I would definitely not be able to write a whole report without re-reading it so we should probably start there and jot down any topics you think would be good as you’re reading. Except we’re definitely not doing how Big Brother uses technology to exercise control over the population because the entire class is probably going to use that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the most glaringly obvious theme in the book so it’s easy to write about.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No, because nobody who writes about that is going to get an A.”

“Who cares?”

“I care! Unlike you, I actually have to rely on my grades to get a good education, Axle.” She hides it quickly enough that I almost think I imagined it, but I’m pretty sure I saw that vulnerability behind her eyes. If she’s from WestSide I’m pretty sure she didn’t have the easiest childhood. I wonder idly how bad it really was. 

“Okay, okay. We’ll pick another topic. What are you thinking for the timeline?”

“Well, it’s not a super long book, but we should pick a topic sooner rather than later so then we can bookmark quotes as we go instead of having to backtrack later. And the more time we have to write the report the better.” 

“So, I guess now we just start reading then?” She nods and pulls out headphones from her bag and shoves them in her ears as she opens the book to start reading. I’m very intrigued by the fact that not only does she seem completely disinterested in me, which is very unusual for girls around here, but she actually seems irked by my presence, even though I’m being nicer to her than I am to every other girl around here.

At the end of class, I take out my phone and type in “Six like-the-number” as her contact name and hand her the phone to put her number in, “you know, for partner purposes.”

She sees what I wrote and rolls her eyes, types in her number and sends herself a text. I see her add my name as “Axle like-the-car-part.”